Pubdate: Sept. 17, 1999 Source: Chicago Tribune (IL) Copyright: 1999 Chicago Tribune Company Contact: http://www.chicagotribune.com/ Forum: http://www.chicagotribune.com/interact/boards/ Author: Paul de la Garza DEATH OF EX-MEXICAN OFFICIAL ABRUPTLY ENDS U.S. CORRUPTION CASE MEXICO CITY -- The apparent suicide of Mario Ruiz Massieu, a former deputy attorney general who faced money-laundering charges in Texas, has robbed U.S. prosecutors of a witness who could have tied high-level government officials in Mexico to drug corruption, analysts said Thursday. If the drug-related charges filed against Ruiz Massieu in Houston last month are to be believed, analysts said, he took to his grave potentially incriminating secrets, including information about former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari; Salinas' older brother, Raul; and the Texas banks Ruiz Massieu did business with. U.S. prosecutors said Thursday that the case against Ruiz Massieu would be dropped, closing an investigation that lasted years. "A lot of people should be breathing easier," a former U.S. law enforcement official familiar with the drug trade in Latin America said. "You have to understand, the person he could have (hurt) the most was his boss, Carlos Salinas." Salinas, who lives in self-imposed exile in Ireland, repeatedly has denied allegations of wrongdoing during his administration, as has Raul Salinas. On Wednesday, Ruiz Massieu apparently committed suicide at his New Jersey apartment, abruptly closing a chapter in one of the most dramatic political dramas in modern Mexican history, replete with murder, mobsters and money. Even his one-page suicide note, disclosed Thursday at his lawyer's office in New York, reeked of political intrigue. Ruiz Massieu, 48, blamed President Ernesto Zedillo and members of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for the assassination of his older brother, Jose Francisco, in downtown Mexico City on Sept. 28, 1994. At the time, Jose Francisco was the second-highest ranking official of the party, as well as the former brother-in-law of the Salinas brothers. "To find my brother's murderers, an investigation should be initiated beginning with Zedillo," wrote Ruiz Massieu. "He and I knew that he was not detached from both political crimes of 1994," he added, referring to his brother's assassination and the assassination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, whom Zedillo replaced. U.S. and Mexican officials dismissed the allegations as the ramblings of a desperate man. If he had information implicating Zedillo in murder, observers wondered, why didn't he use it as a bargaining tool in his own criminal case. Ruiz Massieu, who repeatedly proclaimed his innocence, was scheduled for his first appearance in federal court in Houston on Friday. He was accused of laundering $9.9 million in drug payoffs through two Houston banks. In trying to explain his mental state, his lawyers said that after living in New Jersey under house arrest for the past four years, Ruiz Massieu was afraid that because his assets had been seized, he would be unable to post bail and would go directly to jail. U.S. Customs officials in Newark initially held him for failing to declare $46,000 in cash he was carrying while en route to Spain. In Mexico City, Atty. Gen. Jorge Madrazo, who also was named in the suicide note, defended Zedillo and other government officials. "I think that it is an expression of a psychopath who is on the verge of taking his life," he said. But Lorenzo Mayer, a leading historian in Mexico, said it was inevitable that many Mexicans will think that Ruiz Massieu had been killed. "If you have conspiracy theories in an open society," he said, "imagine what happens in a semi-closed society." As for Ruiz Massieu's trial in Texas, Mayer said he was certain that government officials would have been implicated. "Important things were about to be exposed," he said, "when (Ruiz Massieu) decided to quit." To the chagrin of the Mexican government, Ruiz Massieu seemed to confirm what U.S. law enforcement officials have long suspected: that the level of drug corruption here reaches the highest levels of government. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea